Clinical Trials

Exploring Possibilities in South West Sydney

What is a clinical trial?

Clinical trials are medical research investigations where people volunteer to test out new health and medical treatment in order to prevent, detect or manage various diseases or medical conditions.

Clinical trials help medical researchers determine if a treatment is:

Effective

Safe

Better than the existing treatment

Who conducts clinical trials?

Researchers conducting clinical trials come from a wide variety of different areas, including hospitals and other medical institutions, universities, or pharmaceutical companies.

Safety and well-being is a key focus of a clinical trial team and participants are carefully monitored.

Who is eligible to participate in a clinical trial?

Testing new interventions often requires volunteers who have the particular disease or condition that the intervention targets. Joining a clinical trial is completely voluntarily and involve people of all ages (from young children to the elderly) with various types and stages of a disease or condition.

Participants are able to withdraw from a clinical trial at any time with no detriment to the quality of their medical treatment or relationship with their doctor. There are more than 200 new clinical trials currently taking place in Southwest Sydney.

Talk to your GP to discuss whether you or loved ones are eligible to participate.

Want to find out more?

Register here to receive more information on how to find clinical trials in your area.

How clinical trials work

In Australia, all approved clinical trials are governed by national ethics guidelines and codes of conduct that aim to protect trial participants and the integrity of the research. Names and personal details of clinical trial participants are kept confidential and are not disclosed.

STEP 1

Researchers may first test new interventions in the laboratory to determine if an experimental intervention is promising and suitable to be tested on humans.

STEP 2

A clinical trial consisting of four phases is initiated to assist researchers in gathering useful information about the safety and effectiveness of a new intervention.

STEP 3

Once clinical trials are completed, researchers look at the information collected and determine whether a treatment should be tested further, or be put forward for approval for general use.

Only once a new treatment has been deemed safe and effective can it have the possibility of becoming part of the standard treatment options for the disease or condition.